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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. Warren Buffett (Forbes)

Creating a good business reputation requires concerted, strategic effort. It can take months or even years to establish and, considering the rapidity with which conversations travel on social media, good reputations can be demolished in mere seconds. This blog aims to give you and your team all the tools you need to build a solid business reputation and establish a proactive reputation management strategy.

Why Good Reputation Matters for a Business

How Business Reputations are Earned and Managed

Check Out These Simple Good Reputation Tips

Let’s start with the basics: what is reputation?

In general terms, reputation is the collective beliefs or opinions people share about something. It could be a movie, a painting, or the state of the world.

Reputation management is often both a goal and a component of CSR strategies.

The reputation definition business leaders need to know is roughly the same: it’s the widespread opinion someone has of your company as a whole. This opinion tends to skew black or white: a company is either reputable or not, for example.

For the sake of this guide, we’re going to focus on the brand reputation definition angle.

Brand reputation is defined by the experience that an individual or an organization currently has, or had in the past, with a particular brand. For example, if a brand's products regularly break, this contributes to a poor reputation among consumers. 

Reputation for brands is also contributed to by the brand's policies, dedication to certain causes, employee experience, etc.

Why is reputation important for any business? It sounds obvious that a good reputation matters, but its role can’t be stressed enough. Simply put, a business is only as good as its reputation. This applies to global brands as well as local businesses, and everything in between.

Consumers are increasingly informed about the companies they do business with. In fact, 84.1% of active social media users now use digital platforms to follow or research brands and products before purchasing (Meltwater, 2026). And 86% would pay more for services from a company if they had a better reputation.

What’s more, a company’s digital presence is not like a business card or brochure. It’s a dynamic, evolving, multi-channel entity. Some of those channels you control, like your website and blog. But for others, like Google Reviews, Yelp!, and other review sites, influencer content, and media mentions, your customers are in the driver’s seat.

User-generated content plays a heavy role in your reputation development because people are more likely to trust it compared to company-sponsored marketing.

Interestingly, while 71% of marketers rank brand positioning as critical to their success, only 45% actually use consumer insights to drive those decisions, highlighting a significant 'execution gap' in reputation management (GWI, 2026).

Interestingly, 76% of companies believe they are better than average when it comes to reputation. That sounds like an overly optimistic bell and illustrates companies likely still have some work to do. If you aren’t in the above-average category, then it’s time to raise the bar on what an “average” reputation can do.

Key benefits of a good reputation in business

Distinguish yourself from the competition

Cost-free advertising through word-of-mouth and UGC

A solid brand reputation allows for more business opportunities to open up as potential partners see you as a trusted and well-liked brand. This positive brand equity can do a lot to bolster other companies involved in partnerships. (Just make sure you do your due diligence on them first and check for any reputational red flags!).

When you don't have to put as much collateral behind damage control initiatives, or simply if you're trying to grow recognition for an unknown brand, your marketing costs are reduced, and you can direct funds toward different kinds of projects for maintaining loyalty.

Just as with more business opportunities, a good reputation means customers will be naturally more inclined to consider you over your competitors. They will also be more inclined to continue buying from you throughout the years.

Obviously, with more partnerships and returning customers, your sales and revenue stand to increase from having a good reputation!

The business world is fierce, even more so with social media commentary happening 24/7. Maintaining a good reputation can sometimes be tough with today's consumer expectations, but it's well worth the effort. Going that extra mile helps distinguish you from the competition, so when it comes time to make a purchase, customers know they can trust you and feel better about giving you their business. 

Having a good brand reputation makes it easier for others to recommend you to their family and friends, and share their love for your products or services on social media. This kind of un-prompted UGC generates free buzz and brand recognition — a win-win!

Another great benefit of a good reputation is the ability to attract high-quality talent! When you're the preferred company over the competition, it inspires people to want to work with you, and in turn, hiring the best caliber available means you can continue growing and building brand equity based on your positive reputation.

Company valuations can see a very positive return from a good reputation. This is especially helpful for startups looking for additional funding, but also good for more established companies that want to look good to their shareholders.

We’ve covered common questions like “What is reputation?” and “Why is reputation important?”, but brands also need to know the factors that help to shape their online presence.

Reputations go beyond positive reviews or negative reviews, though these do play a role. You can build a strong brand image based on the following details:

Visual cues. Company name, logo, and all of the imagery related to your visual identity reinforce a consistent brand name.

Mission, vision, value proposition, or philosophy. The guiding light of a company’s internal culture, these elements have a ripple effect when it comes to corporate reputation.

Behavior of members within the organization. What people are saying or writing is key. Articles, word of mouth, news, social media, and online reviews.

The success and positioning of the business. A spot on the Fortune 500 list will contribute to a positive reputation, for example.

Corporate communications. People can only form opinions on what they know, so make sure you share all the positive things your company is doing.

You have more control over your company’s reputation than you might realize. 

When you first start your company, you don’t have much of a reputation to speak of. So where do reputations come from?

Actively pursuing a business reputation
The first is the reputation your business is actively pursuing. For example, if you’re trying to build a positive reputation, then you might invest in a brand management strategy, media relations, and a reputation management solution.
Reputation PR can help you promote the corporate image that you want others to perceive. Then, reputation management tools like the Meltwater Suite for PR professionals utilize brand tracking to help you measure your reputation across channels and see how it evolves over time using media monitoring technology (More on this in a moment, but you can already check out the best online reputation management software on the market).


Earned reputation through people interacting with you
The second side of the coin is other people: your customers, prospects, and the general public. Every time someone interacts with your company, you’re building your business reputation.
These interactions don’t stop with transactions and customer service. When someone reads a news article, blog post, or social media post from you, they’re interacting with your brand. Other peoples' content, such as positive or negative reviews, also influences your online reputation.

With both sides of the coin, your business reputation is earned. It comes from the opinions people form when they interact with you, as well as from the work you put into it.

Although you can’t tell people how to think about your brand, you can proactively manage your reputation to help tilt the scales in your favor using a reputation management strategy.

Tip: Learn everything about online reputation repair if you need to fix it.

Just like any other form of management, reputation management includes planning, building, maintaining, nurturing, and controlling an organization's or brand's reputation with all relevant stakeholders.

To do so, you need a good reputation management strategy in place.

This process can either take place in the digital or the real world. When going digital, it is important to have an online reputation management strategy in place.

The longer you’re in business, the more your brand image will “fine-tune,” with or without your help. The most successful companies are those that take an active say in how people think and feel about the brand. That’s where reputation management can prove valuable.

According to a study by Rosa Chun, senior lecturer at Manchester Business School, it’s unusual to find an internal reputation management department that’s directly responsible for managing corporate reputations. Instead, it’s often a shared effort. Marketing and communications handle the external perceptions, while human resources manage internal culture.

Creating, curating, and maintaining a positive reputation for a corporation is no easy task, but one of the most important facets of human psychology is to be consistent. Research by Roger Martin of the Rotman School of Management has shown that a customer’s loyalty to a company or brand relies more on familiarity than organic “trust.”

Customers love to do what feels comfortable, so companies that are quick to change their identity in the face of a PR disaster may be more likely to lose customers in the long run. For example, they might create lots of positive content to make any negative content matter less. The better approach is often a slow and steady one, focused on rebuilding trust through multiple channels.

Tip: Learn more about brand risk mitigation strategies.

Many companies even outsource their reputation management to firms that specialize in this field. Reputation managers or reputation management companies as a whole provide reputation protection across your entire business. With the help of misinformation detection software and crisis communication tools, such as social listening, audience sentiment analysis, reputation monitoring, and media monitoring, a business reputation management service tracks how people view your company.

This allows companies to know where their brand image stands at all times and take quick action against misinformation, fake news, negative reviews or comments, and brand-damaging press.

Let’s explore some of the benefits of outsourcing brand reputation management:

Access to Sophisticated, Purpose-Built Tools

Get Responsive, Around-the-Clock Corporate Reputation Management

Brand management firms like Meltwater put advanced industry tools to work for clients. This gives smaller companies a huge advantage over purchasing or building their own suite of tools, both of which can be costly. It’s turnkey reputation building that starts on Day 1.

<table class="table-primary">
<caption>How Different Tools Support Reputation Management</caption>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Goal</th>
      <th>Tool</th>
      <th>How It Helps</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Monitor Brand Mentions</td>
      <td>
  <a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/products/media-monitoring" target="_blank">Media Monitoring</a> &amp; 
  <a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/products/social-media-monitoring" target="_blank">Social Listening</a></td>
      <td>Tracks coverage and conversations to <strong>stay aware of how your brand is being discussed</strong> across LLMs, social, news, and print.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Measure Perception</td>
      <td><a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/products/consumer-insights" target="_blank">Audience & Sentiment Analysis Tools</a></td>
      <td>Researches tone, reach, and engagement to <strong>show how people feel about your brand and where sentiment is shifting</strong>.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Crisis Management</td>
      <td><a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/products/real-time-alerting"target="_blank">Alerts & Reporting Tools</a></td>
      <td>Get real-time notifications when negative stories or spikes appear so teams can <strong>respond quickly and protect your reputation</strong>.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Build Authority</td>
      <td><a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/capabilities/influencer-marketing" target="_blank">Influencer & Content Marketing</a></td>
      <td>Increases reach and credibility by amplifying authentic voices and sharing stories that <strong>position your brand as a key opinion leader</strong>.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Strengthen Relationships</td>
      <td><a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/capabilities/media-relations" target="_blank">Media Relations Platforms</a></td>
      <td>Connects your brand with journalists and outlets, <strong>ensuring accurate coverage and stronger relationships</strong>.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Guide Strategy</td>
      <td><a href="https://www.meltwater.com/en/products/pr-reporting" target="_blank">Consumer & Market Research Tools</a></td>
      <td>Provides data on audience behaviour and market trends to <strong>inform proactive brand and communication strategies</strong>.</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Take a self-guided product tour to see how Meltwater supports media monitoring, PR, and reputation management.

We have come a long way from when we started, where we had fragmented data sources for evaluating social media, to now where we have a consolidated single source of truth. Having that one platform that enables us to evaluate our customer perceptions, as well as our marketing impact across multiple markets in a consistent and globally insightful manner, is what makes Meltwater different from its competitors.

Amit Naik, SVP, Global Head of Analytics, Shiseido

Why should you integrate reputation management into your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you maintain your reputation and keep it squeaky clean? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

Related Resource: Reputation PR Strategies & Examples

Business Reputation Management: How to Create and Maintain a Good Reputation

Influencer marketing used to be a scrappy outreach tactic reserved for brands with big pockets. Now, it’s a permanent part of digital marketing — spurring the creation of entire influencer platforms to support it. 

One example is Aspire.io, which positions itself as an all-in-one influencer marketing tool. It handles everything from influencer discovery to outreach and campaign tracking. Instead of finding and vetting influencers and communicating with them manually, everything happens on the platform.

Aspire isn’t the only influencer platform that can do these things. A wide range of platforms serve different budgets, industries, and team sizes. Choosing the right tools depends less on brand recognition and more on your specific goals and resources. 

With this in mind, let’s look at 10 Aspire alternatives and how they give you a leg up in influencer marketing.

Criteria for Selecting Influencer Marketing Platforms

Aspire.io is one of many examples of influencer marketing platforms. In general, it offers key features like influencer discovery, audience demographics and engagement metrics, influencer outreach tools, campaign management dashboards, and fraud detection. 

If you’re considering Aspire alternatives, looking for these same features offers a solid baseline. We sought the 10 best alternatives to Aspire by comparing key features and functions, along with looking at price ranges to suit different budgets and company sizes. We also considered the platform interface, ease of use, integrations, and depth of analytics.

We've compared the options to give teams everything they need to make impactful choices:

We chose these 10 Aspire alternatives based on how easy they are to use, core features and functions, data analytics, and how well they support an influencer marketing strategy.

Meltwater's end-to-end influencer marketing platform helps brands discover and connect with creators, run influencer campaigns, and measure impact with data-driven insights.

Meltwater's full platform extends beyond influencer management to include social listening and media intelligence to help brands understand the total impact of each influencer’s posts and the impression they leave on their audiences.

Influencer discovery with audience analytics and AI-powered summaries

AI-powered and visual search for narrowing down results

Campaign management, collaboration workflows, and payment system

Integration with broader media monitoring and competitive insights

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Strengths</th>
<th>Limitations</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Enterprise-scale analytics</td>
<td>Aspire is influencer-centric, while Meltwater’s influencer tools are part of a larger suite</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Broader platform capabilities to include PR, social listening, and media and customer intelligence</td>
<td>Steeper learning curve compared to Aspire due to its broad feature set</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Grin is a creator management platform built specifically for eCommerce brands. It helps teams discover influencers, manage relationships, send products, and track affiliate sales from one place.

Unlike broader marketing suites, Grin leans heavily into integrations and performance tracking tied to online stores. 

Influencer discovery by niche and engagement

Ecommerce integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce

Affiliate link and discount code tracking

Payment processing and contract management

Tip: Take a look at more Grin alternatives

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Strengths</th>
<th>Limitations</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Strong eCommerce integrations</td>
<td>Not driven by marketplace discovery, so it’s mostly outreach rather than inbound influencer leads</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Ties activity directly to sales</td>
<td>Not ideal for brands outside of eCommerce</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Powerful product seeding workflows</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Influencity is a data-driven influencer marketing platform designed to help brands discover creators, analyze audiences, manage campaigns, and measure performance.

The platform emphasizes analytics and audience intelligence, giving teams detailed insights into follower authenticity, demographics, and engagement behavior.

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Strengths</th>
<th>Limitations</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Granular audience data</td>
<td>Leans more heavily on search-based discovery rather than inbound leads</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Strong fraud detection</td>
<td>Fewer commerce features for affiliate sales</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Made for brands, eCommerce, and agencies</td>
<td>Heavy on analytics, which might be too much for teams seeking simplicity</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Traackr is an enterprise-focused influencer marketing platform built around data and global campaign management.

It emphasizes influencer relationship management, budget tracking, and ROI analysis, making it popular with larger brands running multi-market programs.

Organizational tools to segment influencers by campaign needs

Automated product seeding and campaign management

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Strengths</th>
<th>Limitations</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Enterprise-grade analytics, with an emphasis on creator performance</td>
<td>More depth than many startups or small companies need</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Global data</td>
<td>Potentially higher cost given its focus on enterprise companies</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Real-time campaign tracking</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Tip: Check out more Traackr alternatives.

Upfluence is an end-to-end influencer and affiliate marketing platform that helps brands discover creators, manage outreach, track sales, and automate payments.

The platform positions itself as a data-driven solution with strong eCommerce integrations and an AI influencer agent that discovers influencers on your behalf.

Agency-focused features to manage multiple clients

Tip: Take a look at more Upfluence alternatives.

<table class="table-primary alternate-color">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Strengths</th>
<th>Limitations</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Strong affiliate capabilities</td>
<td>Complex interface with lots of features</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Customizable pricing so you only pay for features you need</td>
<td>Typically used by large brands and agencies, which might be too much for smaller companies</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Free tools available, including fake follower check and influencer comparison tools</td>
<td>&nbsp;</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

MightyScout is an influencer discovery and competitive analysis tool that focuses primarily on Instagram.

The platform helps brands and agencies uncover creators by analyzing follower data, audience quality, and competitor partnerships. It leans more toward research and prospecting than full campaign execution.

Social listening to support campaign tracking

Compare the best influencer marketing platforms

Top 10 Alternatives to Aspire.io for Influencer Marketing

It can feel like there is a constant need to reinvent the marketing engine and reinvent the wheel. AI has transformed discovery… but even with all this change, consumer motivations remain the same. People still want answers, connection, and authenticity that they can trust.

— Upali Dasgupta, Senior Director of Marketing at Meltwater

In the Digital 2026: What’s Changed, What Hasn’t, and What Matters Most webinar, Upali joins Simon Kemp, Chief Analyst at DataReportal and Founder and CEO of Kepios, to cut through the noise. Drawing on fresh insights from the Digital 2026: Global Overview Report, they unpack what’s truly shifting in the digital landscape, along with the fundamentals that remain. Packed with data-backed insights and practical tips, their conversation focused on helping marketers move from overwhelm to clarity.

Below, we break down five key takeaways from the webinar, highlighting:

The actions that will matter most in 2026 and beyond

Want the full insights, data, and expert analysis? Watch the complete webinar on demand here.

Takeaway 1: AI Is Enhancing — Not Replacing — the Customer Journey.

ChatGPT’s mobile app has 557 million monthly active users, nearly eight times as many as Google Gemini.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the challenges of our new AI age, you’re not alone. Marketers around the world are scrambling to catch up to the over 1 billion people using standalone AI platforms each month. 

LLM usage is evolving, and it’s here to stay. From the Claude mobile app’s 14.8 million monthly active users to the ChatGPT app’s 557 million, audiences around the world are already using LLMs habitually. 

However, while these platforms point consumers to resources, they don’t replace existing brand research, discovery, and purchase behaviors. Audiences may use ChatGPT to learn more about your brand, but awareness still largely begins with search engines, social media ads, TV ads, and other existing elements of your media mix.

Takeaway 2: Brand Discovery Data Is Key to Optimizing Your Media Mix.

Social media ads, search engines, TV ads, and word of mouth are leading sources of brand discovery for internet users aged 16 to 64, with varying degrees of importance across the included age groups.

Speaking of where awareness begins, Digital 2026 data shows that social media ads are the leading channel for brand discovery for Gen-Z consumers. Search engines top the list for the 35 to 64 age group, while TV ads and word of mouth are paramount for retirees. However, all four channels are significant sources of brand discovery across age groups. Finding the right mix for you and your audience requires a fact-finding journey of its own.

Each one of these charts is designed to raise you to a higher-value question… That’s how I like to use data. It’s never giving me the answer, really. It’s just leading me to better and better questions that allow me to make really richly informed plans. 

— Simon Kemp, Founder and CEO of Kepios, Chief Analyst at DataReportal

There’s no universal silver bullet for brand awareness strategies, but demographic breakdowns like the one shown in the chart above are critical for assessing your current approach. 

Takeaway 3: Connected TV (CTV) Is the Marketing Channel to Watch for Digital Video Growth.

Globally, an average of 40.5% of YouTube’s ad audience is reachable via CTV.

Just over half of internet users aged 16+ own a smart TV, up from 46.6% in 2023, signaling exciting changes in how audiences consume content primarily created for online channels. 

Vlogs and short-form video now extend into more traditional home entertainment contexts, creating promising new opportunities for marketers, depending on their target regions. For example, in the UK, over half of YouTube’s ad audience is reachable via CTV. That figure stands at nearly 85% in the US. 

For marketers in these and other locations who prioritize video content, CTV may be worth a closer look. 

Curious? Explore YouTube- and TV-specific data broken down by market and demographic in the Digital 2026 report to learn more.

Takeaway 4: Winning Brands Integrate Into Digital Culture.

Therapy and companionship, organization, and finding purpose are the leading genAI and LLM use cases globally, according to the Digital 2026: Global Overview Report.

The “social” in social media still matters most. Digital 2026 data shows the top reason people log in is to stay connected with friends and family. The content and brands that perform best on social media fuel that connection with content that sparks conversation, debate, bonding, and learning.

Similarly, as marketers build AI and LLM strategies, cultural and contextual intelligence is critical. Therapy and companionship are now the top generative AI use cases (up from #2 in 2024), with “finding purpose” close behind. Brands that don’t understand these contexts risk missing the mark.

Our audiences are going to these platforms to ask existential, fundamental questions. If you think that you can just show up and show an ad for shampoo, it’s not going to fit in that setting… When you’re thinking about what your AI strategy is, you’ve got to understand where AI fits in your audience’s world, where you fit in your audience’s world, and, therefore, how you fit within their AI activities.  

That’s not to say that brands are unwelcome on the genAI front. Researching commercial solutions to problems is still a fundamental motivation for using AI tools and LLMs. However, as Upali highlights, “There’s a lesson for brands [in the AI use case data] about how you shape your brand, your narrative, and your storytelling, and how do you use that to truly connect with your audience instead of talking at them.”

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